Voicemail systems may receive, store and provide voicemail messages for subscribers of a voicemail service. A “subscriber” is typically a person that has a relationship with the provider of the voicemail service. For example, the voicemail service may be provided by a local telephone company through which a subscriber receives telephone service.
Voicemail services may have certain shortcomings. One such shortcoming, may occur when a subscriber wishes to retrieve his/her messages. For example, when a subscriber wishes to retrieve his/her messages, the subscriber typically calls a telephone number associated with the voicemail service and retrieves each message in the order in which the messages were stored. Therefore, the subscriber must listen to at least a portion of each message to determine who has left the message. This type of message retrieval system may be time consuming to use when the subscriber needs to access a large number of stored messages.
Another shortcoming associated with voicemail systems may occur when the subscriber responds to voicemail messages by, for example, sending a reply to a calling party. The subscriber may have to respond to each message individually even when callers are associated with each other, such as members of a sports team, employees of a department within a corporation, classmates, etc., and/or where the subject matter of the stored messages is very similar, such as when multiple messages pertain to the same topic.
Voicemail users may benefit from devices and/or techniques that let users interact with voicemail systems more efficiently.